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Afterschool Child Care Regulations Update

01 July 2016

Update on the Afterschool Child Care Programs Regulations

The Vermont Licensing Regulations for Afterschool Child Care Programs recently underwent revision and the new regulations were adopted by the Department for Children and Families. These regulations were implemented on January 1, 2016. However, since that time the federal government passed the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 that requires states to implement certain rules related to child care programs receiving funds through the grant. The programs that are required to follow these rules are all child care programs receiving funds to support children and families through the Child Care Financial Assistance Program (formerly known as subsidy). Given that all child care programs can potentially serve children receiving these funds, the rules will be applied to all child care programs. In addition, Vermont Act 60 (2015) requires changes to child abuse reporting and Act 37 (2015) requires changes to exemption criteria for immunizations.

We have proposed changes to the Afterschool Child Care Programs regulations to comply with the state and federal laws. The Afterschool Child Care Programs regulations are for center-based programs serving school age children only. In March of this year the division collected comments on the rules from the public, and has now sent the final proposed rule, incorporating changes based on public comment to the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR). This is typically the final step prior to adoption of the rules by the state.